


bist du mein?

by kitseybarbours



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Weimar Berlin, M/M, Waiter Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 06:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12742956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/pseuds/kitseybarbours
Summary: “Nothing but scoundrels on the Ku’damm,” Hux purrs. “And I’m afraid I’m one of them.”





	bist du mein?

**Author's Note:**

> I study German, German history, queer history, and German queer history, and have already written a Kylux fic for each of the [First](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12649695/chapters/28827276) and [Second](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9874790/chapters/22151201) World Wars, so I suppose the interwar period had to be touched on eventually! Inspired by [this art](http://oochilka.tumblr.com/post/165494860619/i-just-thought-that-hux-looks-like-one-of-those) by [Oochilka](http://oochilka.tumblr.com/), as well as Christopher Isherwood's [Berlin novels](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16810.The_Berlin_Stories?from_search=true) and Irmgard Keun's [The Artificial Silk Girl](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/370756.The_Artificial_Silk_Girl?from_search=true).
> 
> This was written in two days and unbeta'ed; all mistakes, especially in the German, are my own. Warnings for the heavy-handed use of historical timing to create drama, and also the consumption of vast amounts of absinthe with unrealistically minimal side effects. Some Nazis do make an appearance, but they don't say anything objectionable, or indeed anything at all.

* * *

 

He wants a drink but it’s too early for that, even in Berlin. Tucking his chin into his collar, raised against the biting wind, Benjamin Solo trudges down a slushy street somewhere off the Alexanderplatz, where his meeting with his business associates has just come to a disagreeable end. They were expecting Ben’s father and had not been pleased to see him instead; Ben’s poor Russian and their worse English had not improved the atmosphere of their relations in the slightest. Ben only wishes he'd listened to Uncle Tchubakov's lessons a little better when he was a child.

He doesn’t remember the specifics of the gang's complaint, only that Han had been accused — again — of stealing from them, which Ben had tried in vain to disprove as well as to conclude the negotiations for which he’s come to Berlin in the first place. He was successful in neither aim; and so here he is, his pockets empty, a bruise on his cheek, and Russian threats ringing harshly in his ears. He needs to sit down.

Passersby give him strange looks — he imagines he is scowling fiercely, and his eye must surely be blackening by now. The wind begins to pick up, sending an unpleasant, sleety snow swirling around his ears and nose. All the shop and bar signs look the same, their stylised Teutonic script rendering them indifferentiable as Ben squints up at them, his irritation growing. Finally through the snow and his own angry fug he spots something recognisable: _Bar-Restaurant Wilhelm_   _II._ They’ll have something warm in there. Ben finds the door handle and pulls.

A bell jangles merrily above him and a gust of warm, appetisingly-scented air washes over him. Ben must pause and linger a second too long in relief, for a clear, sharp voice soon reprimands him: _“Die Tür.”_

Ben glances up to see a tall, red-haired waiter in uniform looking at him, eyebrows raised. He wears a black waistcoat and bow-tie, his white shirt-collar perfectly starched; an equally crisp white towel is folded over his right arm, and in his left he carries a bottle of red wine and a glass on a silver tray. He repeats, _“Die Tür,”_ impatiently: Ben’s feeble German is good enough to understand that this translates roughly to _Shut the door, you fool, we’re all freezing._

 _“’Schuldigung_ , _”_ Ben mutters. The waiter gives a prim sniff and makes a brusque gesture that seems to mean, _Seat yourself, I can’t be bothered._ Ben scowls at his retreating back and squeezes his way between the tight-packed tables to a free spot.

Seated, he pulls a menu towards him and stares blankly at the words, which swim in front of him. The prices, though, he understands — and they’re more than he can afford. He can’t remember how many Reichsmarks go into a dollar but in any case they’re asking for too many. He’s about to stand up and leave, return reluctantly to the unfriendly streets until he finds somewhere cheaper, when a shadow appears on the menu in front of him. Ben looks up: it’s the waiter from before.

 _“Guten Tag, mein Herr,”_ the red-haired man begins as if their altercation over the door had never occurred, impeccably polite but sounding quite distinctly bored. The wine is gone, evidently having been served; the tray is now tucked neatly at his side. He begins to reel off a rapid-fire list of what Ben assumes are the day’s specials, absolutely none of which he can make out. Feeling trapped, he holds up a hand, and the man stops, looking irritated to have been interrupted in his spiel. _“Ja?”_

 _“Kein Deutsch,”_ Ben attempts. “I don’t understand. Sorry. And I was just going to —”

“An American,” the waiter interrupts. His switch to English is alarmingly facile. “Correct?”

“Correct,” Ben replies stupidly, thrown off guard by the man’s officious briskness. “I’m from New York,” he adds without knowing why.

“Mm,” says the waiter, obviously unimpressed. “What will you be having? Lunch? Wine?”

“Coffee,” Ben says. “Black coffee. And — cake, if you have it.”

“Cake if we have it,” the waiter repeats drily. “Will that be all?”

“For now, yes.” Ben fights the absurd urge to say he’s sorry. “Thank you.”

The waiter gives a curt nod and disappears, gliding off to the kitchen. Ben watches him go, his irritation returning: he’s had enough of being patronised by these haughty European waiters, the likes of whom he’s been dealing with for weeks now, in Paris and Milan and Prague. His father has sent him on a wild-goose chase through Europe to pay some old _debts_ of some kind, because he claims he’s getting too old to do this kind of thing himself, and Ben wants out. He wants to go home and to live his own life, out from under his parents’ thumb and far from the quasi-legal affairs in which Han Solo always finds himself entangled.

He’s told himself that when he gets back to New York — after a final stop in London for a few days, just a few more days — he’ll tell his father he’s calling it quits. Never mind that he said the same thing last time, after Montréal, and never did it: this time, Ben means it. He’s done.

He’s stewing in this malaise when the waiter returns, more quickly than Ben had expected, and places a steaming mug of coffee on the table in front of him. Ben jumps, startled, and the waiter sniffs. “Your coffee, _mein Herr.”_

“Thank you,” Ben mutters, detecting amusement on the waiter’s full lips. “And the cake?”

“Coming, _mein Herr._ Be patient.” And he glides away again, infuriatingly calmly.

Ben drops three sugar cubes into his mug with the dinky, frivolous sugar-tongs and stirs it rather fiercely, watching as the waiter, with great delicacy, uncovers a glass-topped cake stand on the bar, cuts a neat (if not generous) slice, and slides it onto a doily-topped plate, all dexterously one-handed. He adds a tiny dessert fork to the plate and then slips it back onto his silver tray, hosting this to shoulder-height and navigating easily through the crowded dining-room. For the first time Ben notices that a pianist sits at a Steinway baby grand in the corner, and that all the other patrons seem to be dressed in expensive coats and furs. His mistake sinks in further and he wraps his hands around his coffee and clenches.

“Apple cake,” the waiter announces, appearing at Ben’s side and depositing the plate next to the coffee. “Our house specialty.”

“Thank you,” Ben says dispiritedly. He hardly looks at the cake, caught up in a moment of resentment.

“Is something the matter, _mein Herr?_ Would you have preferred something else?”

“This is fine,” Ben says curtly.

“It is only that you do not look very happy,” the waiter observes, almost cheekily.

Ben looks up, startled by the change in his tone. “What?”

The waiter gives an elegant shrug. “You are sitting here, speaking to no-one, glaring at your coffee as if someone had spit in it.” He makes no move to reassure Ben that this is not, in fact, the case. “ _Was ist denn los?”_

Ben is still so startled that it takes him a moment to formulate a reply. The waiter takes this as incomprehension of his German, and so explains: “What is wrong. I have asked you what is wrong.”

“I know. Bad day for business,” Ben answers him. “A very bad day.”

“Ah. What is your business, then, _mein Herr?”_

“Imports and exports,” is Ben’s automatic reply. _Just true enough,_ his father always reminded him, _for no-one to ask questions._

The waiter’s eyebrows rise, and for a second Ben is sure he’s seen through the feeble lie. But: “Ah,” he says wisely. “Imports and exports. And were you importing or exporting when you got that _blaues Augen?”_

“A little of both,” Ben says, gritting his teeth and touching the bruise, gingerly. It stings, and he draws his fingers away.

The waiter looks amused. “Too bad, too bad,” he says. “Is that why you have come to Berlin?”

“Not to be beaten up, if that’s what you mean.”

The waiter laughs, a surprisingly clear, youthful sound. “Funnyman, are we? No, no. For your business. Your _imports and exports_ business.” He mimics Ben’s accent with surprising deftness.

“Yes,” Ben says. “For business. I leave town tomorrow. Thank God.”

“You don’t like it here?” A little, affronted moue.

“Not _here,”_ Ben hurries to correct himself, not sure why it suddenly matters so much that the waiter knows he is not insulting _his_ city. “I’ve been away for a very long time. I’m tired of it.”

“I see.” The waiter nods sagely. “You are tired of Europe: there is simply too much culture here. You want to return to your charmless New World, with your sky-scratchers and your Ford motorcars in Man _hattan._ I see, yes, I see.”

Ben flushes, absurdly. “No, no, that’s not what I —”

“I know. I am only poking fun. Now enjoy your cake, _mein Herr,_ ” the waiter says, or really, orders; and then he is gone.

Ben is slightly stunned, and for a moment only hovers, fork poised over the slice of cake; but then he recovers, and takes a bite. He eats the cake (soft, moist, deliciously spiced) and drinks the dark, strong coffee and slowly feels the cold and anger beginning to leach from his bones. Despite the high price he’ll have to pay for this respite, he realises that the restaurant is, in fact, quite lovely, and begins to relax and let himself enjoy the brief pause. 

A newspaper has been left on the empty table next to Ben’s; having no company, now the waiter’s left, and no book with him, Ben reaches for it, but finds that it is printed, of course, in German. He tries to decipher it all the same — he makes out the names of a few prominent politicians, names which have become known even in America, and comes away with the conclusion that maybe, possibly, something important is happening in the government today — but then, he cannot be certain. He only arrived in Germany late last night, after a miserable week in Czechoslovakia; he has no idea what is happening in current affairs.

The time it takes him to muddle through the front page of the paper is also how long it takes him to devour the slice of cake and to finish the mug of coffee, which he realises now had burnt his tongue quite badly. He lays the paper aside and sets down his fork and discovers with somewhat of a shock that he feels more awake and _better_ than he has since he arrived on the Continent.

For some reason the red-haired waiter comes to mind as the architect of this mood swing. Ben thinks he would be quite happy to sit in this restaurant for the rest of the afternoon, watching life outside and pretending that he received the smarting new bruise from a bar brawl after one beer too many, rather than through less reputable means… but he glances at his watch and realises unhappily that he had best be going soon, if only to ensure that the proprietor of the hotel (if one can call it that) where Han has arranged for him to stay has not made off with what little luggage he has.

Ben looks around for the red-haired waiter, and hardly has to glance up before he materialises in front of him again. Curious: Ben had always heard that German waiters were glacially slow and utterly rude, but this one has been — in his own way, perhaps — practically _warm._

“Finished?” the waiter asks briskly, and, when Ben nods, whisks the dirty dishes onto his tray. “I have the bill for you,” he tells him, and produces it, by some sleight-of-hand, from a pocket of his uniform. Ben, his heart pounding, hurries to count out the fiddly Reichsmarks — the Russians only left him with a handful of coins — but finds with relief that he has just enough to pay, with a miniscule, pathetic tip on top.

 “There,” he says, wincing, and the waiter nods and sweeps the coins into his free hand, looking unimpressed.

 _“Danke_ ,” he says coolly, and seems about to disappear again, this time permanently. But:

“Wait,” Ben says, and reaches out before he can think, snagging the waiter by the crisp white sleeve.

The man’s eyebrows are nearly absorbed by his hairline when he turns back to Ben. “Yes, _mein Herr?”_ he asks icily.

“What’s your name?” Ben blurts.

“And why does _mein_ _Herr_ want to know?”

“You were kind to me,” Ben says, foolishly. “I was in a temper before and I feel better now. Talking to you helped. Thank you.”

“Brandeis,” the waiter answers, after a moment’s hesitation. _“Ich hei_ _ß_ _e_ Brandeis Hux. You may call me Hux. _Und Sie?"_

“My name is Benjamin Solo,” Ben tells him. “Ah — Ben.” He sticks out his hand to shake, and Brandeis Hux takes it, delicately. His own hand is slim and cold.

“You are still in town this evening, Ben?” Hux asks him, apropos of nothing.

“Yes,” Ben says. “Why?”

Hux gives a languid shrug, still balancing his silver tray on one hand. “I hold a position in another establishment. Maybe you would be interested in visiting me there — I think perhaps it might suit your tastes.”

“Another restaurant?”

“If you like. More of a bar, I believe you might call it — or a club?”

Ben considers for a moment. He had no plans tonight other than to buy a pack of cigarettes or two and a bottle of absinthe and spend the night trying not to be murdered in his hotel room. Visiting a bar-restaurant-club somewhere in Berlin, invited there by a stranger who seemed to think it would _suit his tastes_ (for coffee and apple cake? For ‘sky-scratchers’ and Ford motorcars?) seems eminently preferable.

“All right,” Ben agrees, feeling somewhat reckless. “The address?”

“Look for the Café Imperial, on the Potsdamerstraße.” Hux gives a quick little smile. “You won’t miss it.”

“All right. I’ll — see you tonight, then, Hux.”

 _“Bis später,_ Ben.” And Hux, once again, is absorbed back into the fabric of the crowded restaurant, leaving Ben alone.

 

* * *

 

Ben returns to his hotel (a kind word for it) and finds, thankfully, that all of his things are present and intact. He goes up to the room sans cigarettes or absinthe — he had forgotten that the gangsters took his wallet — and thinks, briefly, to go out again with the (little remaining) money sewn into the lining of his suitcase and procure some, but the snow has picked up and the cake has made him sleepy. He locks, bolts, and triple-checks the door to his room and then falls fully dressed onto the bed to take a well-deserved rest.

He had only meant to nap a little while, but when he wakes again it is fully dark outside, and the battered watch on his wrist tells him it is after six p.m. Ben sits up, groggy and disoriented, but soon realises that he feels better to have slept; he has not had a good rest in weeks, the pressures and stresses of this foolhardy job of his father’s — not to mention the less-than-desirable conditions of the accommodations in which he’s found himself — have kept restful sleep from him night after night.

And if Germany is anything like the rest of the continent, then their evening will barely be beginning; supper, if this is what Ben has been invited to the Café Imperial to eat (perhaps they serve American food?) will not be on offer for some time yet. Ben estimates that he has about another three hours before it will be acceptable to show up to Hux’s mysterious club-bar-restaurant; experiences in Paris and Milan have taught him what kinds of strange and suspicious looks are given to dark, hulking, solitary young men like himself who show up in such establishments too early in the night. Better to go later and blend in with the crowd.

But what to do in the meantime?

Ben glances out, at the snowfall which has increased into a whirling, swirling storm, and then around the room, to the depressing bare walls and greasy metal bedposts and perilously gouged and scratched wooden floor. He has a book in his luggage, even if it is one he has read before. Sighing, Ben fetches it from his bag and re-lights the old gas lamp, whose flame quivers in the draught from the poorly-sealed window.

Thankfully the three hours pass quickly. Ben has made it perhaps a quarter of the way through the book, which is not short, when one of his periodic glances at his watch heralds the happy news that it is ten minutes to nine. Potsdamerstraße is a fair walk from here: gladly Ben realises that he had better get going, or risk being late for the deadline he has set himself. He shoulders on his heavy coat, finds his well-worn leather gloves, and emerges into the cold Berlin night.

It takes him a while to find the street — he has to squint up at the signage through the snow, and not all the street-lamps are lit. The city’s darkness is strange and eerily alive; Ben passes countless people, swathed in winter clothing as he is, formless shadows in the dark who become real as they brush past him and then return to their spectral state again.

The most vivid encounter he has on the way is the sight of a large, cheering, uniformed group across the road from him, singing a boisterous German song and hoisting a red flag aloft. They almost look to be protesting, except that their faces — lit ghoulishly by the torches they carry — all show a hard, manic glee. Although Ben cannot understand what they are singing, their presence gives him a chill all the same. They cross the street, away from him, and Ben hangs back, until he sees that they are gone, before continuing on his way.

From what Hux had said —  _You won’t miss it —_ Ben had assumed the Café Imperial would have a glitzy marquee or an eye-catching sign out front, but it takes him several minutes to locate it, down the far end of the street. The name of the café is discreet and hand-painted, embellished with the occasional gilt flourish. The windows seem covered, but glow invitingly all the same, and a gentle buzz of sound emanates from behind the stately door. Ben hesitates briefly on the threshold and then takes a deep breath and steps inside.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he is relieved by how _ordinary_ everything seems inside. It’s busy, cheerful, and all the little high tables and all the round low ones are occupied by couples and groups of friends, laughing together or chatting more intimately. The air is full of cigarette-smoke but it smells sweet and comforting somehow, mingling with dozens of different perfumes and colognes. Ben can hear music from somewhere in the bar, a sultry feminine voice warbling away in the Berlin dialect. He gives his coat to the small man who appears at his elbow to take it and then heads towards the bar.

Hux is easy to spot, with his height and that head of bright-red hair. There is one empty stool at the end of the bar and Ben slides onto it, next to a well-dressed man with silvering hair, smoking a cigar. He gives Ben an appraising look as he sits down and Ben says hastily, _“Es tut mir leid,”_ assuming he had bumped him or sat on his coat-tail.

The older man, though, instead of frowning, gives Ben a little smile, and he flushes: is his accent that poor after all? To Ben’s alarm, the man leans over to him and says something in German: it might be _Guten Abend,_ or perhaps something less friendly, but Ben doesn’t have time to decipher it before Hux’s cool, composed voice cuts through the merry din of the bar:

“Now, now, Gerhard, leave him alone. He’s new,” he says, laying a glass of whisky down in front of the older man and giving Ben a familiar, sidelong smile. The older man makes a noise of protest, to which Hux makes some rejoinder in rapid-fire German, and the two laugh, glancing at Ben, who stares back in utter confusion. The older man — Gerhard — downs his drink in one and then gets up to leave, swinging his silk-lined overcoat onto his shoulders and patting Ben’s back as he leaves. Ben watches him go, confounded.

“Who’s that?” Ben asks stupidly. “Did I do something wrong?”

Hux laughs. He picks up Gerhard’s discarded glass and whisks it away behind the bar. “No, no. You’re all right. He is one of my regulars — he can be a little pushy sometimes.” Hux winks, as if at some private joke to which Ben is not party. “May I get you a drink?”

“Ah — absinthe. Please.” Too late — as Hux is returning with a shot-glass of the green liqueur, glittering tantalisingly in the bar’s electric lights — Ben remembers that he has no money. He had elected, not without deliberation, to leave the suitcase-lining money where it was, in case of emergency in London. “Oh, damn — I can’t pay for this. Never mind.”

Hux’s brows lift. “It’s on me, then.” He slides the shot across the bar and Ben reaches for it hungrily. Hux looks on, amused. _“Prosit,”_ he says, as Ben knocks it back.

“To you, too,” Ben gasps, feeling the liquor burning down his throat like green fire. _“God,_ that’s good. I haven’t had absinthe like that since the Moulin Rouge in ’31.”

“And what were you doing there?” Hux wants to know, but his attention is caught by a call of _“Barmann!”_ from down the counter. He holds up a finger to Ben and goes to attend to the other customer, but not before pouring him another shot, which Ben downs gratefully.

When Hux returns he seems to have forgotten his question (which is a shame, as Ben had spent his absence almost unconsciously preparing an impressive way to tell what was, in fact, a rather mundane story.) A young woman who seems to know Hux has taken Gerhard’s seat, and she hails him as soon as he comes back over; Hux exclaims in delight to see her and hurries to fix her a drink, grinning and laughing all the while.

Ben watches the two of them — the young woman with her blonde bob and long red nails, gesticulating extravagantly as she tells a story; Hux ever-charming and flirtatious, pouring her another drink when the first one is finished, saying things that make her throw her pretty head back and laugh. He is just beginning to feel something that might be jealousy when he hears his own name in their conversation.

“What?” he asks, turning to Hux.

Hux smiles. “Ben Solo,” he says, “this is my friend, Fritz —”

“— but tonight, you may call me Mitzi,” says the woman, but her voice, now, is the voice of a man; and when she holds out her red-taloned hand for Ben to shake, it is a man’s hand. She smiles.

Ben blinks. He takes Mitzi’s hand. _“Guten Abend,”_ he says dumbly, and Mitzi laughs and laughs again. She asks Hux something; he nods, smirking. “What?” Ben asks impatiently. “What is it?”

“Mitzi tells me to tell you that no, it’s not just the absinthe — you are really seeing what you think you are,” Hux translates.

“Oh,” says Ben, and then: “Oh.” Slowly, he casts another look around the bar, and realises with a shock — although with perhaps less of one than he would have received if he had noticed straightaway — that the couples in this bar, although they appear to be made up of women and men, are in fact all pairs of men. Some are dressed as women, yes — like Mitzi — but there is not a single woman, a woman in the flesh, present here.

Hux is looking expectantly at Ben. Mitzi has disappeared: Ben sees her embracing a clean-shaven young man on the dance-floor, kissing both his smooth cheeks. Ben clears his throat. “You thought this place would suit my tastes,” he says, feeling his face growing hot. His eyes have fixed on one seated couple, two men in suits, one of them curled in the other’s lap as they embrace passionately, without a care for the other patrons around them.

“Yes,” says Hux baldly. “I did.” He is wiping a glass dry with a spotless rag, and doesn’t glance up as he says, casually, “And was I correct?”

“I — well. Well —” Ben falters. To even speak of such things is madness; he has never done so before. He tries to explain as best he can. “I’m not — I don’t — not like Mitzi,” he fumbles. “But…” His eyes have not left the kissing couple, and he swallows, unable to say any more.

“I thought perhaps,” Hux says serenely. He is so much more relaxed here than at the Wilhelm II this afternoon; he wears a waistcoat but no tie, and his shirt-collar has been loosened, revealing a light flush at the base of his throat. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. The bones of his arms and hands are very fine.

 _“How?”_ Ben asks, somewhat desperately. Has he been blind and foolish all this time, broadcasting his most secret self for all to see? He remembers suddenly the troop of torchbearers he saw on his walk here, and recalls, now, their name. The Nazis. That ugly swastika flag. If they had seen him, would they have known?

“A lucky guess, I suppose,” says Hux. “One does develop an eye for these things.”

“Are you — are _you,_ then?”

Hux only smiles, and turns away to get Ben another drink.

 

* * *

 

The evening passes in a blur of smoke and absinthe. Hux comes back to Ben between customers, to exchange a few words and or a smile and a wink, always leaving him with another drink: good Berlin white beer, a fine finger of scotch, or absinthe, more absinthe, as much as he wants. With each refill Ben asks him if he’s certain — Hux is paying for this, after all — but he waves him off with a sly grin. “My treat,” he tells him. “My treat, _Herr Amerikaner;_ so drink up.”

It’s getting late. The crowd has grown rowdier; lively dancing has broken out, and then slower, too, men swaying in each other’s arms as the singer (another cross-dressing man, as it turns out) croons a love song. Their eyes are closed; they look blissful. One of them opens his eyes and winks at Ben over his partner’s shoulder. Ben glances away, but wishes, next second, he hadn’t. He has another drink and waits for Hux to speak to him again.

He flirts with all his customers, and to Ben he provides a running stream of commentary on the men and their companions, some of whom, Hux informs him, are never the same from night to night. From this Ben surmises that they are prostitutes, boys picked up (Hux mentions) somewhere called the Tiergarten, “or else on the Ku’damm — do you know it there?”

When Ben shakes his head, Hux laughs, and reaches across the bar to chuck his chin. “Stay away from there at this time of night, _mein Herr Amerikaner_. Nothing but scoundrels on the Kurfürstendamm.”

It gets later. Ben’s mouth has begun to feel dry; he is disoriented but elated, everything blurring and then sliding into incredible focus. He loves absinthe for how it does this to him: he likes to forget, sometimes. All the same he is beginning to think he should be getting home soon — he has looked at his watch but the numbers swim, it could be any hour; outside the windows the sky is pitch-dark. When Hux returns from his latest trip down the bar, refilling glasses all the way, Ben stands from his seat, leans over to him, and says, his voice surprisingly steady, “I think I’ll have to leave soon.”

“Already?” Hux’s lips almost form a pout.

Ben is given pause. Perhaps it isn’t as late as he thought. “What time —”

“Nearly two,” Hux says. “If you can wait ten minutes, I will have finished my shift.” He looks at Ben.

Wordlessly, Ben sits back down. Hux’s grin is catlike. He turns away.

Ten minutes later Hux is taking Ben’s arm and leading him out onto the Potsdamerstraße. Some of Hux’s regulars or friends in the crowd whooped and cheered when they saw them leaving together; a few blew them kisses, and Mitzi slapped Ben’s ass as they passed her. When they slip out into the night Ben blinks several times, feeling that he has surfaced from a long immersion in a mythical world.

“I know,” Hux says, laughing, watching Ben get his bearings. “I felt like that my first time, too. Come along, _Herr Amerikaner —_ let me take you home.”

“Home?” Ben asks, childishly disappointed, picturing his squalid, miserable hotel room and feeling his feet rooting to the sidewalk in defiance.

“To _my_ home,” Hux clarifies, and smiles when Ben hurries to follow him down the street.

Hux takes Ben down dark streets and side alleys, places where Ben would be hesitant were he on his own, if only for the lingering possibility that one of his father’s enemies could have tailed him tonight — in which case, he thinks, he may have had bigger problems, considering where he spent his evening. But Hux knows the way; he guides Ben deftly through the night, around icy patches and broken pavement; he knows where he is going, and Ben trusts him. He follows him through the unreal city, blind and willing.

“This is my street,” Hux says finally, after an hour or an age — Ben’s hands are numb with cold, he left his gloves on the bar, but his arm is tucked under Hux’s and so he feels warm. Ben looks up at the street sign and reads _Kurfürstendamm._

“I thought you said —?” he asks, confused, and Hux laughs.

“Nothing but scoundrels on the Ku’damm,” Hux purrs. “And I’m afraid I’m one of them. Lift or stairs?”

The lift, like a birdcage, and an elevator-boy who knows Hux, who greets him with a tip of the hat and seems utterly unperturbed by the sight of another man on his arm. They get out on the fifth floor and Hux leads Ben down a long, silk-papered, dim-lit corridor.

“You’re rich,” Ben says, feeling the pile of the carpet under his feet, looking around at the sleek panelling and heavy oak-wood doors.

“I get by,” Hux demurs, and unlocks the last door at the end of the hall.

Later, Ben will hardly remember what the flat looks like at all; he has only a recollected impression of tasteful luxury, sumptuous comfort that never veered into flash. “How can you afford all this?”

“I have wealthy friends,” Hux says delicately, peeling off his coat and gloves and holding a hand out for Ben’s.

_“Friends?”_

Hux looks at Ben, eyebrows raised, and all at once Ben understands. “I see,” he whispers, feeling utterly out of his depth.

“Is that a problem?” Hux asks lightly.

“I can’t pay you.”

“I’m not asking you to.” And Hux comes over and kisses Ben on the lips.

Ben exhales in surprise against his mouth. It has been — so long. He opens his mouth and lets Hux inside, lets him take what he wants, with that nimble tongue and pretty teeth. He has never been so content to submit so utterly before. _I will,_ he knows, _give him anything tonight._

“Bedroom?” Hux asks, and Ben nods, nods. He follows the sway of Hux’s slim hips down a corridor to the bedroom. Hux shuts the door behind them and then turns to Ben, smiling. He puts his hands on Ben’s shoulders. “Relax,” he murmurs. “I shan’t hurt you.”

“You could, if you liked,” Ben thinks he replies, half-delirious, and Hux gives a sweet, delighted little laugh.

“Listen to you. Perhaps we will come to that later. But now — undress for me, won’t you?”

Ben does without question. Travelling-clothes, he has been wearing them for too long: from suitcase to hotel, from train to train, from hotel to suitcase and back again. They are stale and threadbare and he is sick of them; he throws them off with defiance, and stands naked in front of Hux. A smile curves up Hux’s lips and he comes over to trail his hands down Ben’s sides.

“You’re younger than I thought,” he observes, tracing circles on Ben’s back. “You’re just a boy. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” Ben admits. He is frozen for a second by a brief fear: does that not suit? Will Hux send him away? But Hux hums, and smiles, and kisses him:

“Just a boy. _Ein süßes Kind_.” _Sweet child,_ he calls him _._ He spreads his arms. “Undress me, too?”

Ben does. He applies himself with reverence to removing Hux’s white shirt and his waistcoat, and then, hardly fumbling, to unbuttoning the flies of his high-waisted trousers. Hux whispers encouragements as he goes — in German, but Ben gets the sense of them. When Hux is down to his underthings Ben hesitates, and Hux smiles and says, “Those, too.”

Ben has to kneel to remove them, and finds himself, head bowed, before him. Hux’s legs are slender and well-formed, pale, dusted in fine reddish hair; the thatch between his legs, neatly-trimmed, is as bright as the hair on his head. And in the middle of it is his cock, pink and pretty and growing hard. Ben looks up. “Do you want —?”

“Please.”

Ben takes Hux’s cock in his mouth. He sighs with contentment and reaches up to twine fingers through Ben’s hair. “That’s it,” Hux encourages him. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Don’t fret. You’re doing well. Very well. Good boy,” he murmurs, as Ben takes him a little deeper, and then deeper still. _“Oh,_ very good, Ben. Sweet Ben.”

Ben can feel himself getting hard. The feeling of Hux in his mouth is intoxicating: a forbidden pleasure so very _permitted_ here. His past encounters of this sort (what few there have been) have been quick and shame-laden. Already Ben can tell that this evening will stretch on and on, eternally, perhaps. He plans to savour every minute. He is tired of being needed: he wants to need, instead.

Ben realises that Hux has spoken, his voice soft and languid: “I don’t want to finish yet,” he is telling him, curling his fingers in Ben’s hair. “Stand up, sweet boy, and lie back on the bed for me. Spread your legs. Have you ever been fucked before?”

“Not like that,” Ben says truthfully.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

Hux kisses him. “It will take some time to prepare. Breathe for me, and relax. Good boy.” As he speaks he dips his fingers into a pot of something viscous, produced from somewhere with that same sleight-of-hand from the restaurant. The cold afternoon feels centuries away. Hux slicks his fingers and brings them between Ben’s legs.

He gasps when he spreads him, tenses around the intrusion — so alien, so strange! — but Hux strokes his thigh and tells him, _“Sei ruhig,”_ and Ben lies back and is calm. Hux spreads him wider —  _“Gut, sehr gut” —_ and he breathes. Hux says he is good. He will be good.

Eventually Hux asks him, “Enough?” and Ben knows somehow: “Yes, yes.” Hux brushes his lips over Ben’s and then takes himself in hand, enters him. It hurts — oh, it hurts at first, but then the hurt is gone, and there is such pleasure; Ben gasps, the air leaves his lungs.

“More,” he begs.

Hux hums with pleasure, and says, affirmatively, “More.” He thrusts into him, deeper, deeper, and Ben’s eyes flutter madly. He gives himself over and lets Hux fuck him however he likes, harder, faster; he moans and whimpers, he submits. And Hux tells him he is sweet — Hux tells him he is good — outside it is snowing; outside, there is shouting in the street; Ben says, “What is that?”, and Hux says, “Nothing, nothing, look at me, _mein Schatz,_ my sweet boy.”

Ben looks at him, through the strands of dark hair that have fallen into his eyes. Hux, flushed and lovely above him, the ice of his features melted into something warm and kind. He is hardly the same man who served Ben his coffee earlier today; he is hardly even the same man who flirted with Mitzi and the others, who slid absinthe across the bar to Ben with laden glances. Those other Huxes had frightened Ben as much as they had intrigued him. This Hux — this Hux, Ben feels like he knows.

Hux catches him staring, and his expression softens further. He reaches up with one hand to cup Ben’s chin and says, “I see you. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Ben whispers, caught by his gaze, warmed through with pleasure and trembling on an edge.

“An easier question, then,” Hux murmurs, leaning so close to Ben’s lips he could almost kiss them. _“Bist du mein?”_

“Yes,” Ben breathes, without hesitation.

 _“Mein Amerikaner. Mein süßes Kind.”_ Hux presses his mouth, searing, against Ben’s. He draws back and then thrusts again, hitting some supernova inside of Ben. Ben can feel him coming, exhaling as he does, filling him, owning him: _“Mein, mein, mein,”_ he whispers, and Ben shivers. There is still shouting outside, growing louder, frenzied, jubilant; and when Ben comes he shouts too, a wordless cry that resolves itself prayer-like into Hux’s name.

Hux makes to pull out of Ben once he has finished, but Ben’s arms come up and he holds him where he is. “Stay.”

Hux murmurs, and presses himself along Ben’s body, curling their legs together and running a hand over the planes of Ben’s chest. “You did well,” he tells him, punctuating his praise with a kiss to Ben’s pectoral. “Very well. You were so good for me.”

“For you,” Ben agrees drowsily. He has had a long and exhausting day, and quite a lot of absinthe besides. It is late, and Hux’s room is warm, and oh, he is tired, in the sweetest way. His eyes are already closing.

Hux gives a low laugh. When he gets off of Ben and climbs out of bed, he replaces his own weight with the eiderdown, warm and soft and heavy. “There you are. Sleep well, sweet boy,” he tells Ben, who has already drifted into much-needed slumber.

 

* * *

 

In the morning Ben wakes to such comfort that he is alarmed, and sits bolt upright, with no idea where he is. He has spent nearly a month awaking in such cold and dismal locales that he is immediately suspicious to find himself somewhere else: is he in prison? Has he been kidnapped? Is he dead?

But as he looks around and gets his bearings he begins to remember where he is. It is morning; winter sunlight shows faintly through the drapes. Ben’s head throbs — the absinthe; and oh, he is sore… He blinks a few times, recollecting. The mattress beneath him is the softest thing he has ever felt; the blankets have kept him warm, and deeply asleep, all night. A small smile makes its way across his lips. _Like waking from one dream into another._

He climbs out of the big, high bed. His clothes are scattered on the floor — but they don’t seem to belong to him, the dingy, outmoded, second-hand suit and tie. They displease him; he does not want to put them on again. He finds a dressing-gown in the wardrobe and puts that on instead, and then leaves the lovely bedroom to find Hux.

Ben makes his way into the kitchen and there he is, drinking black coffee, smoking a cigarette, with the paper open in front of him. He looks up when he hears Ben’s footsteps and the frown on his face smooths away. “Good morning,” Hux says softly, and strokes Ben’s hand when he sits down next to him.

“What is it?” Ben asks: Hux has glanced down at the paper and the frown has returned.

“Nothing,” Hux says; “only Hindenburg has put those despicable Nazis in charge; that weasel Hitler is chancellor now.”

The date on the paper is _Montag, 31. Januar 1933._ There was shouting in the night. Ben looks at Hux. “I have to leave today,” he says.

Hux — eyebrows raised, coffee-cup poised in the air — looks at him, saying nothing.

Ben swallows. “I don’t want to leave today.”

Hux stirs his coffee with a little silver spoon. "Will anyone miss you if you stay?”

“My parents. My father will be angry. I owe him the money from this job.” A little flare of anger, hot: the reminder that these weeks here have been for nothing, held nothing: not for him. _Not until last night, at least._

Hux sips his coffee and then sets it back down. “Will anyone miss you if you leave?”

Ben blinks. He looks at Hux. “You,” he says, cautiously, testing the word. “You?”

Hux looks up at him, bright-eyed, and cocks his head. “Why, yes, I rather think so.”

Without another word Ben slips from his chair to kneel at Hux’s feet. He lays his head in his lap and closes his eyes with contentment when he feels the scratch of Hux’s fingers on his scalp. All thoughts of his mother, his father, the money disappear.

“It may not be safe here much longer,” he hears Hux murmur, as if from far away, as if from a dream. He hears the paper rustle and can imagine Hux’s frown. “Now that these lunatics have taken the reins.”

“Should I stay anyway?” Ben asks, muffled. “Will I be all right? Will — we?”

“I don’t know,” Hux says lightly. “An easier question, perhaps. _Bist du mein?”_

 _“Ja,”_ says Ben, whose German is perhaps better than he once thought. _“Ja. Ich bin dein.”_

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> There was a real Café Imperial on the Potsdamerstraße, conveniently enough; thank you to Robert Beachy's [Gay Berlin](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20890457-gay-berlin?from_search=true) for bringing it to my attention. Thank you also to [Gefionne](http://gefionne.tumblr.com/) for helping me realise the deep irony of setting this fic on "the last day of the (Weimar) Republic," and to [MapleLantern](http://maplelantern.tumblr.com/) for enabling my whims, as ever.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr [here](http://huxes.tumblr.com/)!


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